Resto Project

[Peter Cooke]

Hi all,
New to the AMCA and old Harleys. Picked up the 31V in the photo in Sep last year right before I moved from Australia to Spain for 2 years. The guy I bought it from had stored it for about 20 years and he says the guy he bought it from had stored it for about the same so it's been off the road for a long time. Now it waits in my fathers garage until I return to Australia in Jan 2014. Just wondering if anyone can spot anything obviously wrong on the bike, aside from the muffler? I've taken advantage of being close to VL Heaven in the UK and have purchased a correct muffler and other items from them.

Cheers
Peter

[sirhrmechanic]

Hi Peter:

From one photo... not much of significance one can tell. Looks like it's missing parts of battery box. And rear lights.

But the invisible stuff is going to be what gets you.

Any bike (or internal combustion engine) that has sat that long needs to be gone through totally before starting/running. Your rings will be stuck. And while they can be un-stuck and cylinders cleaned, etc. Running it will be fatal to internals. If you strip things down, clean and free everything up, then reassemble, you may find that all is great and will run for years. But if you add gas and battery, it will probably start and then eat itself internally in no time.

Recommissioning is a critical thing mechanically.

I would strip down every critical working component, clean it, measure, replace worn items and gently restore/conserve. Patina is lovely. And you can restore cosmetics any time. But the mechanical components are where you want to spend your time early on. The damage caused by neglecting that step can be frightfully expensive.

Cheers,

Sirhr

[c.o.]

What Sirhr said!!! I'm digging that bike of yours Peter!!!

[LouieMCman]

And no dash!

[Steve Slocombe]

Dear Peter, the bike has been repainted but still has a lot of nice original parts. It is missing the taillight, rear stand clip, dash, battery cover and kicker pedal. It has the later full pan saddle, and later spark plugs. But note the early style rear axle is still there, and the copper oil line discussed elsewhere on this forum. The bike has the front stand typical of export bikes, still has the priming gun in the right tank, and the oiler cover dust plate is still there. That could be the original 1931/2 flat lens Motolamp at the front, which is seriously hard to find. Nice piece.

[Peter Cooke]

Thanks for the advice guys,
Sirhr - I'm with you all the way there. Having a mechanical background it's always been my intention to start with the heart! No point having the best looking bike on the block if it wont go. I'm actually going back to Australia in Sep for a few weeks so if I get a chance I'll pull the heads off and take a look.

What I did forget to mention was that the bike came with a repro tail light and dashboard. I believe the footboards, front and rear stands and brake & clutch pedals may be repro's as well.

I have purchased the battery box lid, rear chain guard, kicker pedal and muffler from VL Heaven but I totally forgot about the lack of a rear stand clip. Looks like another order will be going in soon!

[Flathead Butch]

I'm a rank novice with the old bikes, but I can recognize beautiful lines when I see them. Great start. Keep at it and good luck.

Butch